Understanding and using the medical subject headings (MeSH) vocabulary to perform literature searches

H. J. Lowe and G. O. Barnett
Laboratory of Computer Science, Massachussetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

The United States National Library of Medicine's (NLM) MEDLINE database is the largest and most widely used medical bibliographic database. MEDLINE is manually indexed with NLM's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary. Using MeSH, a searcher can potentially create powerful and unambiguous MEDLINE queries. This article reviews the structure and use of MeSH, directed toward the nonexpert, and outlines how MeSH may help resolve a number of common difficulties encountered when searching MEDLINE. The increasing importance of the MEDLINE database as an information resource and the trend toward individuals performing their own bibliographic searches makes it crucial that health care professionals become familiar with MeSH.

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Biomedical ontologies: a functional perspective
Rubin et al.
Brief Bioinform 2008;9:75-90.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Biodiversity informatics: organizing and linking information across the spectrum of life
Sarkar
Brief Bioinform 2007;8:347-357.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Clustering microarray-derived gene lists through implicit literature relationships
Burkart et al.
Bioinformatics 2007;23:1995-2003.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Search strategies for retrieving complementary and alternative medicine clinical trials in oncology.
Bardia et al.
Integr Cancer Ther 2006;5:202-205.
ABSTRACT  

Creating the Gene Ontology Resource: Design and Implementation
Consortium
Genome Res 2001;11:1425-1433.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Overview of Evidence-based Medicine: Challenges for Evidence-based Laboratory Medicine
McQueen
Clin. Chem. 2001;47:1536-1546.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Visualization in information retrieval: a three-level analysis
Song
Journal of Information Science 2000;26:3-19.
ABSTRACT  

Another fine MeSH: clinical medicine meets information science
O'Rourke et al.
Journal of Information Science 1999;25:275-281.
ABSTRACT  

How Can We Cope with the Internet?
Tramer
Anesth. Analg. 1999;89:271-271.
FULL TEXT  

A Model for Enhancing Internet Medical Document Retrieval with "Medical Core Metadata"
Malet et al.
J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 1999;6:163-172.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

The Basis for Using the Internet to Support the Information Needs of Primary Care
Westberg and Miller
J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 1999;6:6-25.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Guides for Reading and Interpreting Systematic Reviews: I. Getting Started
Klassen et al.
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 1998;152:700-704.
FULL TEXT  

Mizspellin and Medline
Ray and Vermeulen
BMJ 1996;313:1658-1659.
FULL TEXT